Autumnalis Rosea in bloom January 27, 2010, northeast corner of Grandview Highway and Renfrew, right in front of the McDonald's. Looks good for an Autumnalis R., in its own little patch with spring bulbs at its feet.
Anne Eng did the previous posting in the Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood thread last year. She has called them 'Autumnalis', not 'Autumnalis Rosea', and the blossoms do appear very white. She posted them again in Renfrew-Collingwood this year, and they still look white. I've copied them here because I'm interested to know if what she's found is 'Autumnalis', because so far, we've only had one location of 'Autumnalis' identified in Vancouver.
Buds are too pink for 'Autumnalis'. Paler flower color could be attributed to recent sunny weather, 'Autumnalis Rosea' often does this. The two cultivars are really quite different, the page (270) in the Eyewitness Handbook I mentioned before shows the same relative appearances (from specimens gathered in the Hillier arboretum) as I saw when examining two other trees growing and flowering near one another at Wisley. Notes I made about these two examples were mailed to A.L. Jacobson, prior to the publication of North American Landscape Trees (1996, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley). No offense to Dr. Justice but I'm still not completely convinced anyone has found 'Autumnalis' up there yet, (apart from one probable example removed from a Seattle park soon after it came to notice) we've certainly never seen it down here. Without a real 'Autumnalis' on hand to compare with the clear distinction of 'Autumnalis Rosea' trees being looked at is not as apparent. In bloom the effect is like small white Christmas lights have been scattered among the tree's branches, which are mostly fewer and stouter than those of 'Autumnalis Rosea'. It seems consumers could have been put off by the relative lack of flower power of this one, resulting in 'Autumnalis Rosea' becoming predominant for that reason alone.
Oh, right, I forgot about the white buds, though the Eyewitness book says the 'Autumnalis' flowers open from pink buds and that the flowers are white, tinged with pale pink. Two of the photos in the Autumnalis thread show white buds, but I see that hasn't impressed you. It's hard to imagine something having less flower power than our 'Autumnalis Rosea'.
When any buds are white then there is no level of pinkness (in those particular buds) at all to judge by. You always have to use the total combination of characters present in a particular specimen to form a concept of what its identification is. If you are not to misname the elephant you have to look at and evaluate more than one or two parts of it.
I'm not in the least bit offended when someone wants to argue about plants. And while I agree with Dr. B on this particular identification (i.e., it is 'Autumnalis Rosea' pictured in this thread), I think there are a few 'Jugatsu-zakura' (Autumnalis) around Vancouver, including the ones pictured in the photos attached to this post. Note that there is no hint of pink in the buds in the scan and that the outdoor close-up shows pink only in the aging flowers. These trees are at the west end of Kerrisdale Centennial Park, at 42nd Ave and Yew St in Vancouver.
See, for me this is too many petals, too many flowers and too many small twigs. And too much strong pink, where there is some. But like I said on the one thread I saw one or two (small) trees in the Hillier Arboretum that - like these - seemed to fall between the two extremes. Maybe there is a third type or clone present in western cultivation as well.
Fair enough. It wouldn't surprise me that we have similar Prunus clones masquerading as the same cultivar. (How about Prunus x subhirtella Autumnalis Group?) Then again, we also have very different weather and climatic conditions here than exist in Japan and the UK. All kinds of factors (temperature, humidity, soil moisture, soil fertility, disease, etc.) affect bud development, and development obviously affects the size, number and colour of floral parts. It would be illuminating (but nearly impossible, given plant health restrictions) to undertake long term, multi-country "common-garden" experiments with cherry cultivars.
The different habit (and flowering aspect) of the 'Autumnalis' at Wisley was quite noticeable, too bad I did not come back with good pictures that could be posted here. I was already aware of some of the reported differences but seeing two similarly sized specimens near one another was highly illustrative. The 'Autumnalis' had stout main branches with comparatively few side shoots coming off. The dominance of the central shoots was maintained out beyond the side-branching. It had none of density and fine texture of the 'Autumnalis Rosea', looking rather instead like an orchard cultivar. The sparse sprinkling of shorter-stalked, shorter- and fewer-petaled flowers was quite inadequate visually, when seen against the contrasting heavier stem growth. 'Autumnalis Rosea' is much more the bushy bouquet of bloom.
I was just going to post a link to these photos also. Not the same Wisley specimen I was talking about, but clearly similar to Kerrisdale. And there is another site with photos of an older tree in the Savill Garden showing the same mature habit as at Kerrisdale. This removes any desire on my part to challenge your Kerrisdale identifications, and adds the interest that there are in fact examples of what appear to be 'Autumnalis' still present in Vancouver.
So then we think all these in Richmond are 'Autumnalis Rosea'? Richmond posting 41 and the posting just before that. In posting 52 in that thread, only this photo would seem to be at all in the running for 'Autumnalis', but not according to the descriptions here.
Except the buds shown in the Eyewitness Handbook do have some pinkness. Much less pink than in the 'Autumnalis Rosea' shown on the same page, but nevertheless definitely not pure white.
